Heating and ventilation equipment utilizing a pressurized flow of air, for example forced air furnaces for use in heating residential and light commercial spaces, are equipped with a filter for use in removing airborne contaminants such as dust, debris, pollen, VOC's etc. from the air stream used to ventilate the space. Suitable filters for use in these applications are commonly described as furnace filters. Conventional furnace filters are approximately 1″ in depth and are sold under a number of brand names; examples of conventional furnace filters are sold by 3M and its subsidiaries, such as 3M Canada, under the FILTRETE® brand name. In recent years, there has been a trend towards use of large format (having a depth of 3-6″) furnace filter bays on new furnace installations. These bays are non-standard in size and accommodate a variety of different proprietary furnace filters. These proprietary large format filters are often expensive and can be difficult to find from retail suppliers. As a result, it would be desirable for owners of furnaces equipped with large format filter bays to be able to simply and easily retrofit those bays to accommodate conventional 1″ furnace filters. It would be further desirable to provide the means to retrofit the filter bay as part of a kit for sale along with or in addition to the furnace filters.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,716,267, filed Oct. 18, 2001, discloses a multi-position furnace filter rack comprising a spring-loaded frame of adjustable dimensions. This furnace filter rack is relatively complex and would tend to make the price of a kit prohibitively expensive relative to simply purchasing the proprietary large format filters
Referring to FIG. 2, another proposed solution is to provide a set of angle brackets shown at 200 and 202 and to pop-rivet the angle brackets 200 and 202 in place in the furnace filter bay. This permanently modifies the furnace filter bay so that it can be used with 1″ filters thereafter. A problem with such a solution, however, is that a skilled tradesperson is typically required to pop-rivet or permanently fasten a set of angle brackets into place in the filter bay and so it is typically relatively expensive and/or difficult to implement such a solution.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a new solution to permit a furnace filter bay that has been made for a first larger size of air filter to accommodate a smaller second size of air filter.